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 North Korea isn’t going to give up nuclear weapons, but that’s not a crisis


Dyer: North Korea isn’t going to give up nuclear weapons, but that’s not a crisis   https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-north-korea-isnt-going-to-give-up-nuclear-weapons-but-thats-not-a-crisis Gwynne Dyer  Postmedia News, Feb 04, 2022 “They want to have a deterrence system that is like a scorpion’s tail,” said Prof. Kim Dong Yup, a former South Korean naval commander. “North Korea’s main purpose is not to attack but to defend themselves.” They want a “diversified deterrent capability,” adds Kim — and who could blame them?

North Korea’s missile tests are a welcome distraction from the daily warnings of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, and even less likely to end in a war. North Korea test-fired seven different missiles in a month, U.S. President Joe Biden retaliated with more sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s hermit state, and everybody got their war horses out for a brisk trot around the track.

The reality, however, is nobody in a position of authority is in the least excited by this little back-and-forth.

The media speculate about whether North Korea’s tests are meant to influence the upcoming South Korean elections or to lure Biden into a Trump-style summit, but the likeliest motive is just what Prof. Kim said it is: a desire to demonstrate the efficiency of North Korea’s missiles. You know, the ones that carry North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang hasn’t tested any nuclear weapons since 2017, but it is believed to have 50 to 60 warheads. Neither has it test-launched its intercontinental ballistic missiles (the ones that can reach anywhere in the United States) since then. The January tests were of hypersonic missiles, intermediate-range missiles, cruise missiles and similar hardware.

Most of those missiles can probably carry nuclear warheads, but only as far as South Korea or Japan, America’s local allies. It’s a formidable investment for a small, quite poor country, but it’s not that extravagant when you consider all these nukes are intended to deter the United States.

No American diplomat or military officer will admit publicly that North Korea’s fear of an American nuclear attack is justified, but the more intelligent ones realize the rules of nuclear deterrence are the same for democratic superpowers and dwarf tyrannies. If your enemy has nuclear weapons, then to be safe you must have them, too.

From the perspective of Pyongyang, American nuclear weapons are a mortal threat, and nobody can persuade the North Korean regime they would never be used against it unless it attacked first. Americans wouldn’t forgo nuclear weapons if China and Russia made such promises, nor would they take America’s word for it. Too much is at stake to take a chance.

This is the universal dilemma of nuclear weapons. North Korea has just as much right to worry about it as the United States, and it will never give its nukes up so long as the confrontation in the Korean peninsula persists (71 years and counting).

Any meetings between U.S. and North Korean diplomats or leaders will be driven by North Korea’s perpetual desire to end UN and U.S. trade sanctions and/or America’s futile quest to get Kim to agree to unilateral nuclear disarmament. Neither is going to happen, but there is no crisis either.

The North Korean regime is vicious, but it is not crazy. A reasonably stable cold peace has prevailed in the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, guaranteed since the first North Korean nuclear test in 2006 by mutual nuclear deterrence between the U.S. and North Korea. There’s no urgent need to fix it.

The United States cannot bring itself to publicly acknowledge this fact, but the Pentagon and the State Department privately accept it is the long established reality of the U.S.-N.K. relationship.

“They very much understand the significance of moving up the ladder on range,” a senior Biden administration official said on Sunday, implicitly recognizing the North Koreans had not tested any new missiles capable of striking the American homeland.

There really is a mutual understanding. They just can’t talk about it.

February 5, 2022 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Electricity production at the new Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor in southwest Finland has been hit by yet further delays

Electricity production at the new Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor in southwest
Finland has been hit by yet further delays. Production had been set to
begin in January, but this was postponed until early February. In a press
release, the facility’s operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said the
much-delayed reactor will instead begin producing electricity at the end of
February.
“During the OL3 plant unit’s test production phase, it was
observed that there is a need for modifications in the plant unit’s
automation related to control functions, as well as further testing related
to the modifications,” the statement said. The delay also means that
regular electricity production will begin in July, and not June as planned.
Production will operate at 30 percent capacity until then. YLE 4th Feb 2022https://yle.fi/news/3-12301825

February 5, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Finland | Leave a comment

Grim(m) news — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

Originally posted on Beyond Nuclear International: Europe writes its own fairly tale on nuclear power and fossil gas By Linda Pentz Gunter The brothers Grimm are alive and well and they just wrote a new fairy tale. It doesn’t have a very alluring title — The Taxonomy Complementary Climate Delegated Act (Act)— but it is…

Grim(m) news — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sizewell nuclear developers co-opting Suffolk New College

 A college has struck a “sizeable” deal with Sizewell C which will enable
students to be trained at the planned new nuclear power station.

The memorandum of understanding between Suffolk New College and the proposed
energy plant at Leiston means it will also receive support from the
proposed power plant to develop a range of educational initiatives from a
civil engineering campus and a welding centre to a Sustainable Agri-food
Skills Centre at Suffolk Rural, which occupies its Otley campus.

 Ipswich Star 2nd Feb 2022

https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/business/suffolk-new-college-and-sizewell-c-sign-deal-8662542

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

French nuclear capacity low in February, need for vigilance remains 

French nuclear capacity low in February, need for vigilance remains – RTE Nasdaq, Forrest Crellin  Reuters  PARIS, Feb 4 (Reuters) – French power grid operator RTE said France’s nuclear capacity in February was expected to remain around the relatively low level recorded last winter, but there was little risk to power supply as mild weather was expected in the coming weeks.

The current maintenance schedule now allows between nine and 13 reactors to be shut down during the month of February depending on the week, either for standard maintenance or following identification of additional corrosion defects, RTE said…………

In January, the nuclear fleet reached its lowest level ever with an average of around 48 GW of available capacity for the month………

State-controlled power group EDF EDF.PA and the French nuclear safety authority ASN are expected to implement a strategy to control the corrosion that took five nuclear reactors offline, which will have consequences in terms of supply beyond this winter, added the RTE.

The effect of the outages will be reported in coming seasonal analyses and balance sheet forecasts, RTE said.

The outages at the five reactors that were taken offline following the detection of welding faults were extended in mid-January………  https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/french-nuclear-capacity-low-in-february-need-for-vigilance-remains-rte-0

February 5, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Russia, China concerned over Japan’s plans to dump Fukushima radioactive wate


Russia, China concerned over Japan’s plans to dump Fukushima radioactive water — statement,  BEIJING, February 4. /TASS/. Russia and China are concerned over Japan’s plans to dump contaminated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean, both countries said in a joint statement on Friday.

“Japan’s plans to release nuclear contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean and the potential environmental impact of such actions are of deep concern to the sides,” the statement reads.

In this regard, Moscow and Beijing emphasized that “the disposal of nuclear contaminated water should be handled with responsibility” and carried out in a proper manner based on arrangements between the Japanese side, neighboring states and international organizations………..

At present, over 1.25 million tonnes of water are being stored in steel tanks on the territory of the accident-hit power plant. The water has reportedly been purified of all harmful radioactive substances except for tritium, as there is no technology to rid the water of it. The Japanese government officially permitted to release a significant amount of Fukushima-1 water into the ocean. The water is expected to be dumped into the ocean gradually in small amounts over 30 years. The International Atomic Energy Agency has already announced that it will control this process on a permanent basis…………….

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) specialists constantly pump away this water and put it into special steel reservoirs located on the plant’s territory. However, more than a thousand of them have already been piled up there. The space for these tanks is running out and the limit may be reached already in the summer of 2022. About 140 tonnes of specially treated water are being pumped into them daily. As the Japanese side says, the liquid will be further treated to reduce the amount of tritium before its release into the ocean.  https://tass.com/world/1398125

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Japan | Leave a comment

Chomsky: US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has “Left the Domain of Rational Discourse” 

Chomsky: US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has “Left the Domain of Rational Discourse” C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout 4 Feb 22, ”………….In a new exclusive interview for Truthout on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky outlines the deadly dangers of U.S. intransigence over Ukrainian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even when key Western allies have already vetoed earlier U.S. efforts in that direction. He also seeks to shed some light on the reasons why Republicans today seem to be divided on Russia…………..

C.J. Polychroniou: Tensions continue to escalate between Russia and Ukraine, and there is little room for optimism since the U.S. offer for de-escalation fails to meet any of Russia’s security demands. As such, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the Russia-Ukraine border crisis stems in reality from the U.S.’s intransigent position over Ukrainian membership in NATO? In the same context, is it hard to imagine what might have been Washington’s response to the hypothetical event that Mexico wanted to join a Moscow-driven military alliance?

Noam Chomsky: We hardly need to linger on the latter question. No country would dare to make such a move in what former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of War Henry Stimson called “Our little region over here,” when he was condemning all spheres of influence (except for our own — which in reality, is hardly limited to the Western hemisphere). Secretary of State Antony Blinken is no less adamant today in condemning Russia’s claim to a “sphere of influence,” a concept we firmly reject (with the same reservation).

There was of course one famous case when a country in our little region came close to a military alliance with Russia, the 1962 missile crisis. ………

The tensions over Ukraine are extremely severe, with Russia’s concentration of military forces at Ukraine’s borders. The Russian position has been quite explicit for some time. It was stated clearly by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at his press conference at the United Nations: “The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further expansion of NATO to the East and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Much the same was reiterated shortly after by Putin, as he had often said before

There is a simple way to deal with deployment of weapons: Don’t deploy them. There is no justification for doing so. The U.S. may claim that they are defensive, but Russia surely doesn’t see it that way, and with reason………………………

It is sometimes claimed that NATO membership increases security for Poland and others. A much stronger case can be made that NATO membership threatens their security by heightening tensions. Historian Richard Sakwa, a specialist on East Europe, observed that “NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a plausible judgment……………………………

It is indeed curious to watch what is unfolding. The U.S. is vigorously fanning the flames while Ukraine is asking it to tone down the rhetoric. While there is much turmoil about why the demon Putin is acting as he is, U.S. motives are rarely subject to scrutiny. The reason is familiar: By definition, U.S. motives are noble, even if its efforts to implement them are perhaps misguided………………………………… https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=0ec432a8-b38b-4908-8c62-c8ef785a8e3d

February 5, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

February 4 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion:  ¶ “Green Olympics: Test Case For China And Carbon Neutrality” • China can use the winter Olympics as a way to show the many millions of people who will watch the games that it is serious about achieving its ambitious climate goals. China has nearly half of all the installed capacity of renewable energy […]

February 4 Energy News — geoharvey

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How to mix sanctions and diplomacy to avert disaster in Ukraine. Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — Who Watches the Watchers?

At doom’s doorstep: It is 100 seconds to midnight How to mix sanctions and diplomacy to avert disaster in Ukraine By David Cortright, George A. Lopez | February 1, 2022 Exercise with Teikovsky missile unit. Credit: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. CC BY 4.0. After a month of intensive political work at home […]

How to mix sanctions and diplomacy to avert disaster in Ukraine. Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — Who Watches the Watchers?

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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